Abstract: When out-of-pocket medical expenses exceed the threshold, catastrophic medical expenses occur, increasing the probability of poverty due to illness. Based on the data from China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) in 2014, this paper uses the A-F multidimensional poverty measurement method to identify poor families, explore the probability of poverty due to disease. The impact of severe illness increased poverty by 15 percent and reduced total wealth by 6.9 percent. This paper finds that medical insurance, social capital and private lending all have a cushioning effect on poverty caused by illness. The three kinds of cushions have their respective comparative advantages. It is found that medical insurance has significant cushioning effect on low- and middle-income families or high- and medium-risk diseases families. The cushioning effect of social capital only exists in middle- and high-income families or high-risk disease families. T Private lending has a buffer effect only for low-income households. Therefore, families, especially low-income families, should make reasonable use of cushions to improve the ability to resist the impact of serious diseases and reduce the probability of poverty due to diseases.

Key words: A-F method, Poverty, Cushion Effect